2014 Catalogue Archive

The most basic components of abstraction are utilized to ever-creative and often puzzling results in the work of Ludwig Schwarz. As an artist, Schwarz continually makes work that questions the nature of painting, aesthetics, and display, yet somehow he avoids making self-reflective ‘painting about painting.’ His abstract works possess an awkward freshness that look like the artist is posing a visual question on the canvas at the exact moment the viewer steps in front of it. In this untitled work, four colorful, rough-edged rectangles hover over a black shape that provides a brace or structure for the background. The rectangles simultaneously float above and fit in the white negative space, creating a subtle and strange spatial tension. Recent exhibitions of Schwarz’s work include Ludwig Schwarz: Retrospective (1990–2014), Dallas Biennial, Oliver Francis Gallery; Meet the Schwarzes, NADA New York with James Cope Projects; the 2010 and 2012 Brucennial, New York; and Re-Seeing the Contemporary: Selected from the Collection, Dallas Museum of Art.